May 8, 2016 | Genesis 1-3 - Dad as Priest-King: Why Being a Man is High Calling From God

Here is the sermon from Mother's Day taken from Genesis 1-3 looking at Adam.

²⁶ Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” ²⁷ God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. ²⁸ God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” ²⁹ Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; ³⁰ and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. ³¹ God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Audio
Notes


For more:
May 10, 2015 | 1 Samuel 1:1-20 - Mother's Day 2015
Worship Minimovie: A Very Special Mommy

Jesus is a Better Adam: How Gethsamane Corresponds to Eden - Part 2

Jesus is a Better Adam: How Gethsamane Corresponds to Eden - Part 1
Jesus is a Better Adam: How Gethsamane Corresponds to Eden - Part 2


In part one, I introduced the basic exegetical concept that Jesus fulfills all that the Old Testament anticipates. In that post I provided Isaac and Israel as examples. The parallels force us to see their connections with Jesus. We must conclude, then, that Jesus is a true and better Isaac and Israel.

With all of that as background, let us turn our attention to Jesus' Gethsemane experience and how it relates to Adam and Eden. One way to see Gethsemane as the fulfillment of Eden is to note the numerous contrasts.

• Eden is a beautiful garden full of life. Gethsemane is marked by tragedy, betrayal, and death. 
• Adam failed. Jesus persevered.
• Adam's temptation took place in the daytime. Jesus' took place at night.
• Adam ate the forbidden fruit. Jesus drank the cup of wrath.
• Jesus says, "not my will but yours." Adam says, "not your will but mine."
• Paul describes Jesus as the second Adam (Romans 5)

We should note other connections. First, there is an emphasis on "sorrow." In handling out his curses, God repeatedly says there will be sorrow. Eve, for example, is told that God will "increase her sorrow" in childbirth. In Gethsemane, we clearly see a sorrowful Savior. Regarding this point, author Patrick Henry Rearden elaborates:

The context of this assertion indicates that Jesus assumed the primeval curse of man’s sorrow unto death, in order to reverse Adam’s disobedience. In the garden he bore our sadness unto death, becoming the “Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). . . . In the garden Jesus returns to the very place of Adam’s fall, taking upon himself Adam’s sorrow unto death. (The Jesus We Missed, 160, 161)

Ultimately, what we need to see at Gethsemane in narrative is what Paul described in his epistles. Jesus, as the second Adam, succeeds where our first father failed. Jesus, then, is a true and better Adam. Another important theological point needs to be made clear here. Yes Jesus is Israel's messiah yet he is not only Israel's messiah. By taking upon himself the story of Adam, the Evangelists make the central point that Jesus is man's messiah. He is the Savior of both Jew and Gentile, Israel and the rest of the nation.

Jesus is a Better Adam: How Gethsamane Corresponds to Eden - Part 1

Jesus is a Better Adam: How Gethsamane Corresponds to Eden - Part 1
Jesus is a Better Adam: How Gethsamane Corresponds to Eden - Part 2


Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all that the Old Testament anticipates. Proper exegesis must take into consideration this important theological principle. Before connecting Gethsemane to Eden, perhaps it would be beneficial to provide other examples in order to illustrate this principle.

All four Evangelists unfold the crucifixion story in a way that forces us to see that Jesus is a true and better Isaac. In Genesis 22, God commands Abraham to offer his son - his only begotten son - as a sacrifice. It is an appalling commanding and we should be offended by Abraham's obedience. Consider briefly the following parallels between Jesus and Isaac:

• Isaac and Jesus were both sons of a promise that was given many years before their birth.*
• Isaac and Jesus were both born to women who could not have conceived apart from a miracle.
• Isaac and Jesus were both firstborn sons. 
• Isaac and Jesus were both sons of Abraham.
• Isaac and Jesus were both greatly loved by their father/Father.
• Isaac carried his own wood to the sacrifice just as Jesus carried His own wooden cross to his crucifixion.  
• Isaac and Jesus each willingly laid down their lives to their father/Father.
• Isaac and Jesus were both laid down as a burnt offering for sin. 
• Isaac was brought back from the dead figuratively and Jesus was brought back from the dead literally.
• Isaac was almost sacrificed in Moriah which many believe became Jerusalem.

More parallels could be given. We should further add that Abraham promised his son a lamb would be provided by God(Jehovah-Jirah). And yet, no lamb was provided in place of Isaac. The text is clear that Abraham ended up sacrifices a ram after the Angel of the Lord (a pre-incarnate Jesus?). The reason for this is that Jesus, the Lamb of God, is the fulfillment of Abraham's prophecy.

Another example to consider regards Jesus and Israel. Jesus, we conclude here, is a true and better Israel. We see this the clearest in Matthew's Gospel though the other Synoptics hint at this connection.

In Matthew's version of the Nativity, Jesus is forced to flee to Egypt (of all places) due to the rampage of a king who sought to kill the innocents. Clearly, Matthew is drawing a parallel between the nameless Pharaoh in Exodus and Herod. Likewise, Jesus is spared the king's wrath just as Moses Israel's great deliverer, was.

The narrative quickly comes to the beginning of Jesus' ministry marked by his baptism. He enters the Jordan river from the west and is baptized "to fulfill all righteousness." But instead returning to Israel the way he came, Jesus continues to march east entering the wilderness where he will be tempted by the serpent for forty years.

All of this should sound familiar. Israel, following its emancipation, is symbolically baptized by marching through the parted waters of the Red Sea. They, like Jesus, immediately enter the wilderness. Israel faces constant, demonic temptation for forty years and ultimately fail. God is forced to wipe out an entire generation before leading them to the Promise Land. Jesus, however, conquers where Israel failed.

The parallels should be obvious, but they go even further when we look at the temptations themselves. In each of the temptations, Satan questions the Sonship of Christ (this is more clear in Luke where he introduces the temptation story with Jesus' genealogy). "If you are the Son of God," Satan says. Israel is said to be God's son by adoption. Christ, the Evangelists proclaim, is God's only begotten Son - one with the Father. Furthermore, the first temptation in Matthew's account regards bread. Interestingly enough, it is bread that makes Israel desire to be slaves again.

More parallels can be drawn but you get the point. One cannot interpret the first four chapters of Matthew's Gospel without stepping back and seeing how Jesus fits in redemptive history. Christ is the climax of the story and all that takes place in the Old Testament is anticipated and fulfilled in Christ.

In the next post, we will turn our attention to how Jesus' experience in the Garden of Gethsamane parallels that of Adam's in the Garden of Eden.


*Much of the following is taken from Mark Driscoll, Abraham Nearly Sacrifices Isaac. See also his notes here.